How work can be – Stories of agile & lean

Too much of a good thing? Why you don’t have to take part in every method craze.

This post is written by Petra Willeand only translated by Yours Truly. When I read her original German post, I felt vaguely guilty. I loooove methods! Read about them, try them, create summaries and books about them… I want people to know about a lot of possible solutions so that they can pick one that can help with their problem. But I don’t mean for every one to try each and every new method on the block. Let Petra tell us why:

Are you sometimes lost in a forest of methods? Don’t panic. We’ll offer orientation and 8 tips for your method tool box and point out why it might be good not to try every new method that comes along.

There are more methods than ever

For a product manager in digital product development there are more method and process models to pick from than ever and new ones are added all the time. Be it Business Model Canvas, Product Field, Personas, Story Mapping, Lean User Research or Design Thinking – just to name a few.

The raw attraction of new methods is still strong. You feel their pull and the need try them. The promises of salvations that accompany them raise the bar even more. Maybe that new method is THE ONE. The silver bullet that solves all your problems. THE ONE that just makes everything easy.

Just fill out the new canvas and *zippityzip* your successful product goes online.

We all know: it ain’t that easy.

Despite the host of methods digital products don’t just create themselves. It is work. Because the main job is: “Find a product that’s worth becoming reality, specify it, implement it, and check its success.” That’s a lot of steps and no tool can lessen that burden. “One swallow does not make a summer” so to speak.

Those methods and processes don’t help at all?

Sure they do. They help us. They are support and guide us in product development.

But I daresay that the multitude of methods on offer distracts us from the actual task. On top of that I daresay that frequently switching methods deprive individual POs of something important: The chance to truly learn and improve.

Because you need to use a methods many times over, in different contexts and for different product ideas, to learn their true strengths and weaknesses. And only given time you can gain important insights and deep unterstanding. “Practise makes perfect.” is not a saying for nothing.

Even if you’re not going to invest the 10.000 hours described by Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Outliers: The Story of Success”, it makes sense to try a method more than once.

Let’s assume you pick Storymapping. You could start by using it during a discovery phase to structure requirements. With the next product you can use it to create a roadmap or use the storymap for status updates. Little by little you understand what a method can and cannot do, if you like it and if its effect lasts.

For that reason alone it’s not a good idea to drop everything to try a new way. The agile manifesto continues to hold: “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools” – meaning real work with the team, users and stakeholders should always take precedent before constant experimenting.

I know from consulting in product organisations that it’s not always easy. The latest method is a status symbol to some extent.

But how do you keep the balance? What methods do you really need?

An approach – 8 tips for your method tool box

To guide through the forest of methods I’ve made the following list. It’ll help you figure out whether your tool box is already well equipped or if you’ve got a void to fill.

Here I go into detail about why this is important <LINK>. Long story short: you can only create a vision of your product in other people’s heads if you’ve got one in your own. And that’s the prerequisite to eventually holding a finished product in your hands.

5. To ease the transfer of visions from head to head, it helps to have a method to speak about users as vivid and lively as possible. Examples: Personas, Usertests – the audience: the whole team.

6. Additionally you should make your product palpable. For this you can use: clickable prototypes, designs. Of course these have to be accessible for team members and stake holders!

8. Inspect & Adapt is an agile principle <LINK> and should also apply for your chosen methods: Try it, observe what changes / improves, try it in different situation and choose carefully whether to permanently keep this method in your tool box or to discard it. And when a method proves its merit, it may well stick around for a while.

Conclusion

Properly using a method do not a finished product make and those who want to truly understand a method have to stick with it and use it more than once.

Relax, if you create great products with your favorite methods you can safely ignore most of the latest methods trends.